A fruit salad is one of our favourite desserts and we eat a lot of it. We have it with home made ice cream in the summer or custard on a cold day. We also eat it with home made yoghurt. A friend who came to lunch said that she an never afford to buy fruit for a fruit salad and so it made me think about some of the things that we do to try to eat it all year. We are trying to eat 35 different fruit and vegetables a week and so having fruit salad helps.
- Grow what we can. We do not have a big garden but we have a hedge of currants, a patch of raspberries (autumn and summer ones to stretch the season), strawberries, some apple trees in containers, and a cherry tree. We have just planted a grape vine and so fingers crossed.
- We forage for apples, raspberries, bilberries and blackberries, and some times find some plum trees when away on holiday. Berries keep in sealed glass jars for weeks in the fridge (my longest was blue berries for 11 weeks) or can be defrosted. Apples and pears can be stored wrapped in newspaper in a box in a cool dark place. Mine are kept in the shed or the spare bedroom over the winter.
- I buy a pineapple about twice a year and cube it into small pieces. I you buy them when in season they are only still about 69p each. I then freeze it on a tray so that the pieces don’t stick together, and freeze. I take a few pieces out when making a fruit salad. The pineapple is also great to make sweet and sour savoury meals and it works out a lot cheaper than buying tins of pineapple which have shot up in price recently.
- I buy cheap tins of peaches (34p) from Aldi and rinse them and again freeze and chop into the fruit salad during the winter when nothing is growing fresh.
- Go to the local fruit market as it is closing. I have bought oranges, berries, bananas and melons at really knock down prices this way. (I always wash bought fruit with bicarbonate of soda an soak for 10 mins before rinsing as this gets rid of pesticides. I dry any fruit before storing in jars)
- Look at what is in the Aldi or Lidl special 6 fruit and vegetables on offer as these are often seasonal and sold at good prices. Other supermarkets often have things like grapes on offer, too.
- Visit your local community fridge or waste food project. I got some kiwi and satsumas this week for just a small donation.
- If you don’t grow or forage, bought frozen fruit can be defrosted and added to fruit salad.
- Grow mint to add to a fruit salad, or lemon balm, to pimp it up a bit.
- Look for a discounted fruit box. I believe Sainsburys and Lidl do them and other supermarkets may too. They are usually out early in the morning. We have had two recently and between them they have had satsumas, grapes, strawberries, oranges, pears, and a pineapple in, as well as vegetables and salad. They cost £1.50 at Lidl and £2 at Sainsburys. You have to be quick, though, as they soon go.
- Dried fruit can be soaked in orange juice or water and added to fruit salads. I some times add cranberries or sultanas in winter. Some years I dehydrate fruit in the summer in the summer, store it in sealed jars, and hydrate before adding to fruit salad.
- Some times I will add a little bit of finely chopped crystalised ginger, or some stem ginger syrup to a fruit salad to make it special. Kirsch is nice, too.
- Look on apps like Olio which often offer free items and sometimes these are fruit.
- Share buying an item with a friend or relative. We have done this with blue berries and a pomegranate .
I will often put a little bit of lemon juice on my fruit salad to stop the fruit going brown. If I use foraged apples they go brown very quickly as there are no preservatives. If I get apples from a shop, market, or the community fridge they no longer seem to go brown, which is a bit worrying. At least once a week I will make a box of fruit salad up for the fridge so that it is easy to grab when we feel like it for a dessert or breakfast. I always defrost the frozen fruit before adding it. The fruit helps with our nutrition but is also a treat. Do you have any more tips for enjoying fruit all year round, please?
I’ve not been as conscious of eating fresh fruit but will buy frozen & add to porridge for breakfasts I like your idea & could alternate breakfasts . I do make use of the skins of fruit to make cider vinegar with apple skins & cores & use citrus skins either dried for fire lighters & to make fertilisers along with banana skins . Thanks to your ideas .
Yes the cores and skins are great for vinegar. I have made loads this year with all the foraged apples. The citrus skins are great for making cleaning solutions too, but I do like to smell them in the wood burner. I am using all my bananas at the moment to ripen tomatoes but yes they make great fertiliser. I am trying to eat more fruit as we are baking less and yet I crave a pudding. Thanks for sharing
I think you have covered everything! I try to use the fruits that are in season first and then I tend to buy frozen fruit through the Winter – aside from apples and bananas. I will also add dried fruits like blueberries, cranberries, figs or dates to salads and to porridge. Tinned fruit has shot up in price a lot so I try to buy it when on sale or when I can accumulate Loyalty Points.
Yes tinned fruit has shot up here too. A tin of pineapple is 3 times more expensive than it was 3 years ago. It used to be a lot cheaper to buy a tinned pineapple
We grow berries of various types and apart from making some jam we eat some with yoghurt and always freeze some if only small amounts so there are lots of small containers to use throughout winter. I usually make a blackcurrant summer pudding in summer and freeze some blackcurrants to make one or 2 during winter. Gooseberries go for jam mostly but I also make gooseberry fools either out of custard, yoghurt or cream. We have quite a lot of blackberries so freeze them until we have some apples, usually from boxes down the road or this year from a neighbour in exchange for apples. I sometimes make a crumble but try not to make too many cooked puddings as I don’t want to put any weight on. We also have a pear tree and have eaten 3 pears from the tree and another is ripening, also some small late baby pears that I hope will grow into full sized pears but were strangely so far behind the others. There’s also blueberries which I sometimes put on cereal and I give the dog some of those because they are good for him and he likes them.
Lastly rhubarb. I eat it but give a lot away and we always make our chutney with rhubarb and courgettes. If I am cooking it to eat with yoghurt I cook it with an orange or satsumas so it doesn’t need sugar.
Lots of different fruit there, sounds good. Yes we make compote every week but we do love to have a fresh fruit salad as well to reduce the use of sugar and sweeteners. Cooking the rhubarb with orange is a good idea. I will try that in future, thanks